Don Gilmore's thermal tuning system

Hi Giovanni, instead I am very happy to see you again.

Coming to this "method".

I have every physical reason to say that: "It won't work even if you beat yourself against the ground". On YouTube they post a lot of nonsense, excuse the term, just to get views. I don't know which of you has seen the videos about the infinite ways to produce electrical energy by exploiting harmonic motion. It's a pity that harmonic motion does not exist in nature because there are things called friction that confirm the second law of thermodynamics (While the work of a thermodynamic machine can be entirely converted into heat, we cannot in the same way fully transform heat into work. Therefore, in a thermodynamic cycle, efficiency is always less than 1). This is the reason that justifies why when we drop a tennis ball it bounces a few times, decreasing its height with each bounce until it stops, or why a machine brought to speed, if the accelerator is released, slows down until it stops. In other words, they are fairy tales from people who have nothing to do.

Coming to this system, it is simply impossible. And I will justify my explanation in light of considerations that are not my personal points of view but in light of very precise laws of physics.

The piano strings are stretched with a certain tension. Let's assume that the tension for that C (which by the way was very out of tune even after the "miracle") was a certain value x. The frequency of a string is directly proportional to its tension t (the higher the tension, the higher the frequency associated with the vibration of that string), inversely proportional to its length (the longer the string, the lower the frequency), and again inversely proportional to its cross-section (strings of larger diameter produce lower frequencies): f=t/sl. We can assume that the gauge (diameter) of the string and the length are constant values (within the limits of temperature changes which, however, in this case do not act only on the string but on the entire piano frame (temperature increases the distance between the two nodes of the string (which determines the pitch). What changes and causes the piano to go "out of tune" is therefore the tension. Why does the tension change? Because the string tends to thin out and modify its geometric characteristics when subjected to tension, precisely because we are not in an ideal case where we can stretch or compress a material as much as we want and it will return to the same measurements as its original state... Imagine an elastic band. Holding it anchored at one point and being able to wrap it at another point, it will thin out more the higher the tension load is. If we measure the elastic band before applying the tension and after having applied the tension for a few days, we will notice that its geometry has changed; the elastic band has become longer and of a lower gauge. This happens due to the settling of the material subject to traction and therefore subjected to a force (Everything in nature tends to re-establish equilibrium at minimum energy). By pulling the elastic too much, one runs the risk of the elastic breaking. Typically this happens in the center, i.e., where the moment of forces is greatest. The piano string makes no difference; it will have its own elastic constant and can certainly resist greater tensions than an elastic band, but barring different orders of magnitude, the reasoning is totally analogous; I used the spring only because conceptually it could be closer to the imagination of all the internet readers who will find themselves reading this post.

Now coming to the piano, the string, settling and going to re-establish equilibrium towards minimum energies (zero traction force), means that it loses its tension load, but let us remember that by losing tension (which was directly proportional to frequency) we will see a loss in frequency and thus falling notes (which is exactly what happens to our pianos which then have to be retuned).

For this tuning method to work, we must assume the exact opposite, i.e., that as the piano goes out of tune it increases its traction instead of decreasing it.

But why?

Simply because this method is based on the loss of tension due to thermal expansion of the string (due to the passage of electrical charges inside the string, which is a conductor). As the string heats up, it expands, losing tension (attention); as it cools down, it does not regain the pitch it had before being heated, because the tension ensures that it cannot contract again.

This system, therefore, is always at a loss; therefore, it is possible to re-establish an equality in the chorus for a single note, but always in light of a general lowering of the instrument.

To retune a note in pitch, there is nothing to do but spend Force to newly regenerate the traction of the string that determines its correct pitch.

Therefore, these are bullshit! Don't believe in flying pigs. Before technology can replace humans in this field, it will take much more! As you can see, software can be used to help (some better, some worse, some terrible), but an instrument tuner with a wrench in hand is always needed; otherwise, the piano won't stay in tune. It holds up for 5 minutes and then gives out.

Actually, it seemed out of tune to me as well, even after the tuning intervention.